"I'm Controversial Because I Say Things a White Man Can't" - Calvin Robinson
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 5 minutes
Words per Minute
211.5886
Summary
In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine speak to Calvin Robinson, a former teacher turned political commentator. Calvin talks about his upbringing in a working class working class family, growing up in a single parent household, and how he got into politics. He also discusses his experience of racism growing up as one of the first mixed-race families in a very white town.
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
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And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
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Our terrific guest today is a former teacher turned political commentator,
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It's an absolute pleasure to be here in person. Thank you very much.
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It's great to have you on, man. Listen, you've been doing the rounds lately,
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and we like people who piss a lot of people off.
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And you, I think, are right at the top of that list at the moment.
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But for anyone who isn't familiar with your background, your story,
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a lot of people will see you popping up and talking about
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but they might not be familiar with your backstory.
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So tell us who are you, how are you, where you are,
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how have you ended up sitting here talking to us?
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So I think, first of all, you said I piss a lot of people off.
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I'm just speaking normal common sense, British values,
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I don't try to be a controvert or anything like that.
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a small town called Mansfield in Nottinghamshire,
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former miners town, very working class background,
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They came over here during the Windrush generation.
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So I've got a lot of experience in what you call
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racism I was trying to think of a better way of putting it but you know growing up in a as one
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of the first black families in a very white town I experienced firsthand how bad racism can be in
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this country which is what leads me quite often to discuss racism in public because I don't think
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a lot of the time what we're talking about is racism there are a lot of other socio-economic
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problems in our society a lot of other causes going on and people see racism everywhere but
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I got involved in politics because essentially, you know, growing up in a single parent household
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after my parents split, my mother worked really, really hard all of her life to put, you know,
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food on the table for me and my sister. She's a role model, absolutely. But people around us
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weren't working as hard as my mother. You know, people were staying at home on benefits and being
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better off than my mother, who was, you know, she's a lecturer now. But she always worked at
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least two jobs and I thought something is wrong with our system if people are better off not
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contributing to society and and people are kind of trapped almost at home there's a system where
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people are dependent on the states that's not what the welfare system should be about in my
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opinion it should be there as a safety net for people who really need it but we should encourage
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people to go out and work and earn a living and get some meaning in their lives and contribute to
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wider society and I don't think that's what we have at the moment so that's what drove me into
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into politics and into conservative politics uh so to speak uh you know growing up in a former
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minors town it was probably quite controversial to have conservative opinions um people aren't
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necessarily fans of margaret thatcher up there but you know but a lot of them do think with small c
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values even though they don't label it that way and i think that's the same up and down the country
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most people in this country are normal small c conservative people that don't want this woke
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agenda being shoved down their throats all the time which again is another thing that I talk
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about but as I entered politics I always said I will never talk about race I don't want to be that
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guy who goes up that mixed race guy who gets shoveled on to talk about race all the time
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but it's just such an issue and I feel like you know we talk about privilege quite a lot
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and one of my privileges is that I'm able to have this conversation without people
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casting aspersions and naturally assuming that I'm racist or for the most part anyway I'm able
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to say things that the average straight white male isn't allowed to say in this country anymore
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so I feel like I'm duty bound to stand up and say them which is the reason I stick my head above the
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parapet so often and often get it chopped off. And you say you are able to say the things that
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a straight white male is not able to say so what are those things Calvin that for example somebody
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like me wouldn't be able to say? Thankfully. In my voice. This isn't a systemically racist country
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that this is a fantastic place to live, one of the best places in the world to live, actually.
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It's the most tolerant, diverse, inclusive country in the world. And that's why people choose to live
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here. And people come here and make a success of themselves. And that's fantastic. We should
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celebrate that. But instead, we focus on the negatives. And we look at our society in every
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single problem, we pin it down to race these days. And it's not like I said earlier, I've
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experienced real racism. I'm not discounting people's personal lived experiences. But what
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I'm saying is if you look for racism everywhere, of course you'll begin to see it. And I have a
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real problem with, you know, the way we're teaching young people that everything is racist and
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everyone is racist. As a former teacher, you know, I see all the time this self-perpetuating myth of
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white supremacy, you know, telling young people that if you're black or of an ethnic minority
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background, you are going to have hurdles to overcome. There are barriers that people are
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putting up in your life because of the colour of your skin.
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Isn't that true even in the way you've described your own story?
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You talk about growing up in a mixed-race family in the Midlands,
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being the victim of racism or whatever, experiencing racism.
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But that would have been a barrier in your way,
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or causing problems at school or whatever it might have been.
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that your white classmates wouldn't have had to deal with?
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no and it depends where we're talking about so it wouldn't have been an extra hurdle because
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as much as people were offensive to me and caused me upset that wasn't people being discriminatory
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against me so it wasn't when I went for it to apply for a job they were saying no because you're
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brown that was people calling me a paki in the street and that's purely ignorance on their part
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because that is the wrong derogatory term for a start but also it doesn't mean just because I got
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racially abused because I was one of the few brown people in a in a white town doesn't mean that white
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people can't get racially abused too. And I work in London schools, for example, where white kids
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tend to be in the minority, actually. And I see a lot of the racism that goes on in London is
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towards white people these days. So anyone can be a victim of racism. And we've got to get back to
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the reclaim our language. You know, racism means discrimination or prejudice against someone
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because of their ethnicity. It doesn't mean a power struggle between black people and white
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people. That's, you know, that's what the woke mob have tried to readjust our language to kind of
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win the battle by default we've got to take the terms back and put put meaning behind our words
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again and i think a lot of white people at the moment are experiencing racism i think anti-white
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racism is the most popular racism after anti-semitism at the moment it's it's so fashionable
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to be anti-white and it's it's acceptable you can talk about the white man as much as you like and
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no one will blink an eyelid you know no one will raise an eyebrow it's it's completely okay and i
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don't get why that is. We talk about you know institutional racism and black people being
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oppressed. I don't feel oppressed. Yes I experienced racism as a child at points but in my
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in my adult life I don't feel oppressed. In this metropolitan city this capital that we live in I
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don't feel oppressed but I do see oppression all around me all the time and that is people
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oppressing the white man. You're not allowed to speak up if you're white. You're not allowed to
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have an opinion if you're white. You're not allowed to engage in these conversations if you're white.
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how is that not oppression? And also we talk about the fact that you know we live in this liberal
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you know metropolitan bubble but why is it acceptable Calvin that if you deviate from
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the standard rhetoric as a mixed race folk as a as a black guy and you say well I disagree with
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this why is it then acceptable for somebody to use racial epithets against you? Well exactly
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because this I'm preaching for equality I hated being the victim of and I don't like that word
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but the victim of racism or experiencing racism.
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I get called an Uncle Tom, a coon, a house nigger,
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all of these horrible, derogatory, racist terms.
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because I'm not subscribing to their approved narrative.
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therefore I am against them therefore I'm a bad guy and they can call me whatever the hell they
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like it baffles me how someone can consider themselves an anti-racist while being racist
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towards people like me and who are the types of people who make these claims who and who say
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these things to you do they come from a standard part the argument political spectrum race gender
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etc well it tends to be people on the hard left and quite often it tends to be other people of
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ethnic minority status so other black and asian people um mostly it's other black people that
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call me things like house negro but i have been called that recently by a bangladeshi woman which
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is fascinating for me because that is clearly then racism but it was but it was still accepted
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and so it comes from this you know stepping away like i say from the approved narrative is
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it is the establishment's opinion that we need to protect ethnic minorities and i get where
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they're coming from that's that's a very well-intentioned thing to want to protect people
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but I think it's patronizing I think we need to treat all people equally we don't need to treat
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people special in a special way because they happen to have brown skin and that's where it
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all comes from I think this perceived racism this you know if people don't happen to get where they
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want to be in life they'll blame it on systemic racism if people don't get a job they'll blame
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it on racism if people don't um well if people don't get anything at this point people are living
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very entitled lives, I think. And it's easy to pass on that excuse. But I don't think it's their
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fault. I don't think people are thinking, you know, oh, I'll blame that on racism. I think
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they've been taught this from a young age. And, you know, we've talked about this in the past.
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And I know you've had other guests, because I was a governor at Michaela School, for example,
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with Catherine Berbison, which she founded. But schools like that. And, you know, while I was in
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school I've I try to teach all young people that it doesn't matter where you come from doesn't
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matter what your background is what your race is we're all here together we're British that's the
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thing that unites us that's our community and if you work hard keep your head in your books you'll
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be able to make a success of your life whereas a lot of other schools especially in the state
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sector in this country are teaching young people that actually you know what you're a victim like
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I said earlier you've got hurdles to overcome you've got barriers and that is self-perpetuating
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because the more you tell young people that the more they'll start to believe it and on the other
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end of the spectrum we're telling white kids that you know you're racist you need to have
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unconscious bias training because whether you're overtly racist or subconsciously racist you are
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racist because you're white and all white people are racist and that's a given at this point how
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are we accepting that as a given fact anyone can be racist anyone can be a victim of racism
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that's a fundamental basic fact that we need to get back to why is it so taboo for somebody of
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your ethnicity to be conservative in this country so where my father's family are from but okay
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carry on most people are conservative you know the labor party over there is a conservative party
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where is this sorry might have just jamaica jamaica yeah so my father's family from jamaica
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the labor party over there is a conservative party despite the weird name uh most people in
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the caribbean and most people in africa are small c conservative it's just in this country
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whereas they're not looking after our interests
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because I believe that the family unit is the basic fundamental beacon of society and once we
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lose the family we have a breakdown in our systems in our way of life and that's why we're seeing
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such you know rises in knife crime in London that's why everything is falling apart because
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we've lost faith and we've lost family and those are the two fundamentals of our society that we've
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we've kind of let the left break apart but that's the reason I am a small sea conservative but
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saying that for some reason sets me apart from the left and where they perceive black people to
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be or where they think we should be i don't know that bme term is interesting isn't it because i
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i often think it's just another way of just saying those darkies over there isn't it really
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well it is it's another term for non-whites and again it's pinning people against each other it's
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divisive it's toxic it's saying you are either white or you're not right you're one of us or
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you're not one of us and if you're not one of us we need to help you we need to support you we need
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But think of the, what I'm getting at is think of the massive amount
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of variety or that word diversity within that group.
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The idea that you can put Indian people with Pakistani,
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they're fighting a fucking nuclear war over there, right?
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They don't have the same views or values or attitudes or heritage
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And then you take Afro-Caribbean people like yourself
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and then people who come first-generation immigrants from Africa.
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the differences between those groups are sometimes bigger than the differences
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between a white British person and a black British person.
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100%. They couldn't be more diametrically opposed.
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we see black African children excelling throughout school,
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through primary school, through secondary school.
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They're doing a lot better than every other demographic, pretty much,
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especially white British kids and black Caribbean kids.
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White British kids and black Caribbean kids are almost at the bottom of the scale.
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It's only travelers and gypsies that are actually below them.
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And black African kids are twice as likely to go to university.
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So it's not a case of, you know, systemic racism,
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because if it is, people are picking apart black kids and saying,
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well, we'll treat the African kids different to the Caribbean kids.
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I don't think most people would even see the difference, to be honest with you.
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I think what's happening here is a difference in values.
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And African families tend to still have their faith
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and there's a lack of faith there these days as well,
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which we wouldn't see if we went back to the Caribbean
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and we'd see a lot more faith than we do in British Caribbean families,
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the breakdown in the family and the breakdown in faith.
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where's my anyway um can you get cancelled any further at this point probably not let's try it
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let's find out but calvin here's the thing do you think that there have been some scars inflicted
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upon the british caribbean community because they came here during wind rush they endured that
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racism that inequality that open hostility whilst a lot of first generation for instance
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African families who come here in 2010, 11, they're not going to be exposed to that as or as much of
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that because we're quite literally a different society than we were back then. It's an interesting
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perspective but I don't think it's true. I think you know when my grandparents came over here they
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really really relished the opportunity to come over here during Windrush, they celebrated it,
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they wanted to become Brits and they were proud to be Commonwealth citizens and all of that and
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yes they experienced a lot of racism but we have made progress. I often say you know my father
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experienced a lot less racism than his father and i experienced a lot less than him doesn't mean we
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didn't experience any and it doesn't mean that we don't need to still work on it but we've come a
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long way and i think the generation after me the young kids that we see today especially in inner
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city schools and london schools where they are no longer the minority and they're no longer
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experiencing racism especially not on the level of people from the windows generation what we're
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seeing is a loss of identity so for example my grandparents while they were proud to be become
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British they were also proud to be Jamaican and my father being born born here he's proud to be
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half British half Jamaican whereas the you know we're getting to the third and fourth generations
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now where people are like okay so what is my identity how should I identify and what we've
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what we're missing is you know in schools for example we don't promote British values the
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teaching standards say don't undermine the British values and I think if we promoted them
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and gave something for people to latch on to then they'd have that sense of belonging that
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every single human being needs but because they don't have that they get and they're getting told
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left right and center that the color of their skin is the core of their identity they're like so what
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does that mean what does it mean to be black british or black caribbean british this day and
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age it doesn't really mean anything because caribbean people integrated into british society
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very well uh there is no segregation there whatsoever whereas in america which is where
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they often look there is there's a completely different environment you know african americans
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are a community and there was a lot of segregation in America and they had a lot of race rights and
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they only just reached a level of well there's just about reaching a level of equality whereas
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we've had that so when our young people are looking to American culture hip-hop culture
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African-American culture all of that and taking it on board they're addressing issues and seeing
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issues that don't necessarily affect us and we saw that with Black Lives Matter over last summer
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where you know kids in London were fighting against police brutality we don't have police
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brutality in this country they're saying you know take your knee off my neck and and you know get
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rid of police guns and very few police have guns over here you know there's there's no issue with
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with police racism in the UK it's it's completely a case of us importing US drama and that's that's
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because our kids are so lost and they don't have an identity. It's interesting that you keep coming
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back to British values and I'm working on my first book and it will be largely about the West needing
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to stand up for itself and remember what its values are.
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But we were discussing it the other day, actually,
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and you are probably second maybe to Catherine Burble Singh,
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You are our two most patriotic guests, I would say,
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in terms of being openly talking about British.
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Catherine talks about having a British flag at the school
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and teaching kids British values and reminding.
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As we become more and more a multi-ethnic society,
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And you've put the nail on the head right there
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a multi-ethnic society, not a multicultural society.
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We don't really understand what inclusivity means.
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And we kind of think it means, okay, everyone is welcome
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and we'll take all your values on board and dilute our own
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We don't want to be seen as anti-whatever you are.
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because we've been so afraid of offending people
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It's an amazing country with an amazing history
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well, Calvin, they're not exclusive to Britain.
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we helped spread parliamentary democracy around the world and again people will talk about the
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empire and say oh we were the evil british empire but there's so much we've lost a sense of context
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and we lost a sense of balance there was so much good that came out of that as well even me saying
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that i'm probably gonna get cancelled just for saying that now it's absolutely ridiculous that
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you can't have a balanced conversation but you know we helped spread parliamentary democracy we
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spread christianity we helped spread schools and hospitals and charities and the english language
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for goodness sake a lot of good came out of it but also a lot of atrocities that we should
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absolutely address and we should teach history holistically i'm not denying that but let's not
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try and paint everything in a binary picture of black and white and automatically stick with the
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negative you know it's it's usually our intellectuals as well that are so quick to
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denounce british values and british culture as a bad thing uh for the world and you know western
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values as well and just say the west is evil and bad you're like well not really you know if you're
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not relatively speaking and not if you look at what's happening in the rest of the world
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people are afraid to criticise China in any way, shape, or form.
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But if they did anything, if we did anything, rather,
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like what they're doing over there with the Uyghur Muslims,
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if we did anything like that, they'd be so quick to denounce us.
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It's their culture Chinese people are supposed to put each other in camps.
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We should expect every country to have a basic level of human rights
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Unless we do trade with them, in which case you crack on, mate.
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We still want your cheaply made crap over here.
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Calvin, let me ask you this, moving on slightly,
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and I've asked this question of dozens of our guests
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particularly coming from the educational background
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and they're reading about CRT for the 73rd time
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I'd probably struggle right so first of all before we get into talking about it what is critical race
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theory so critical race theory is the idea that white people have some kind of privilege
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and black people are naturally oppressed based on the color of their skin that's that's it in a
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sentence uh but then people will come back and say no what we're actually saying is that you know
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you won't be discriminated against because of the color of your skin if you're white that's what
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white privilege means and even that isn't true because like i say i've worked in a lot of london
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schools and i've seen a lot of white kids be bullied because they're white and you know if
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you take that to a wider issue we can address the grooming gangs well we've had a survivor of that
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so it absolutely is possible for anyone to be discriminated against based on the color of their
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skin that is what racism is um so i don't think white privilege is a thing i think white working
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class kids and white working class people in particular have been left behind in this country
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and almost forgotten about because it's unfashionable to address the situation if you say you want to
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support white working class kids or white working class people in general you are going to be
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perceived as a racist what do you have against brown kids why don't you want to help the black
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kids or the asian kids and it's not about picking who you want to help it's about looking at who's
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not doing well and trying to level the playing field and we do that by introducing equality and
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stop treating brown and Asian kids differently stop treating black kids differently based on
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the color of their skin that's the only reason white kids are left behind it's not because we're
00:24:05.340
not addressing them it's because we're too busy addressing other people if we treated all kids
00:24:09.220
equally across the board and raised our standards for everyone all kids will thrive and that's the
00:24:13.280
same in society same issue in society that we see in schools and why is it that suddenly you know I
00:24:18.660
understand to a certain extent these ideas become popular in academia but why is it they get
00:24:23.880
filtered down into our education system we've got enough of a battle trying to get kids to read and
00:24:29.520
write and be actually literate by the time they come out of school why are we filling their heads
00:24:34.440
with this stuff it's because well-meaning individuals want to make a difference and
00:24:38.340
they want to be seen to be doing the right thing um on one level and there's some on some level
00:24:42.580
there's people that want to be virtue signaling and showing everyone else how much of a good
00:24:46.100
person they are and the way to do that is to say that you are an anti-racist or to say that
00:24:51.580
you believe um that black people are oppressed in this country and that this country is systemically
00:24:57.360
racist but if you ask anyone in what way is this country systemically racist in what way are you
00:25:03.160
held back by the color of your skin very rarely will you get an answer um you know people will
00:25:08.600
say well the nhs is racist or the police are racist or education is racist i'm like okay give
00:25:13.200
me a prime example and i like people to give me examples in education just because that's my field
00:25:16.740
but they never ever can and the only thing they ever say to me is well i look in the textbooks
00:25:24.480
because this is a country that's been predominantly white
00:25:31.400
but that doesn't mean you can't learn from them
00:25:34.340
and you can only learn from people that look like you.
00:25:38.440
And then people say, but I want representation.
00:25:51.480
then be the brown face that's doing computer science
00:25:57.680
But I don't think superficial diversity is important.
00:26:02.840
I think we should be looking at what they've achieved
00:26:17.680
And in education, again, we talk about replacing people
00:26:26.500
the way we compose music, the way we think about music,
00:26:46.760
And I think most people see the world the way that we do,
00:26:51.060
But we've been taken over almost by the woke mob,
00:26:54.060
the virtue signers who want to be seen to be doing the right thing
00:26:56.420
and want to be seen to be good people in the eyes of each other.
00:27:02.140
And this is why at the beginning you said to me,
00:27:05.080
And I'm genuinely just talking normal common sense values
00:27:13.440
We don't even necessarily advocate any specific set of values.
00:27:16.860
We just talk to different people about them, and we piss people off from doing it.
00:27:20.880
But I was going to ask you, do you think your mixed-race background informs some of your views where you have, you know, your mom is white.
00:27:29.840
So when people talk about the white people being their oppressor, you're not thinking about a generic category.
00:27:35.600
You're thinking probably, I would imagine, of your mom.
00:27:37.880
And you're going, well, my mom's not going around oppressing people.
00:27:42.060
does that inform your thoughts on this issue it does sometimes it's interesting because
00:27:46.020
being mixed race means i'm not white therefore in most people's eyes i'm just black so people
00:27:52.960
disregard half of my heritage half of my background half of my upbringing half of my
00:27:57.860
skin color um which i found to be quite a level of racism actually in that why if you're not 100%
00:28:06.220
white are you therefore by default black yeah um so it does affect my world view in that
00:28:12.140
being mixed race i have a lot of people in my family that are black and a lot of people in
00:28:17.620
my family that are white and on both sides have experienced racism which is why i know that
00:28:22.400
anyone can experience racism but also it affects me in that a lot of black people who are racist
00:28:27.740
towards me are kind of upset on some level because i'm not 100 black and i'm not 100 white
00:28:34.720
i don't know it's i think bisexual people have the same issue
00:28:38.820
they have a lot of animosity towards i love the way you look to you
00:28:42.220
but this is what i hear anyway yeah i think it's like people want so badly to categorize you to
00:28:49.100
put you in a box if you don't fit in that box they don't know how to deal with you and they
00:28:52.740
see you as a problem something to handle i'm not a problem but i think if we really really push
00:28:58.460
this british values thing and move the conversation away from skin color like morgan freeman says
00:29:02.760
stop talking about it that's the way to get rid of racism um eventually i reckon we'll probably
00:29:07.920
all end up being beige anyway as we you know as society progresses and it will become less of an
00:29:13.300
issue but yeah i think it has on some level but not on a conscious level affected the way i think
00:29:19.320
have you ever been abroad and felt out of place because you didn't speak the language
00:29:25.720
no because i voted brexit brexit means brexit i know that sometimes you're abroad you don't
00:29:31.500
speak a local language it's very awkward like france is talking to a woman so you have to shout
00:29:36.140
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00:30:38.180
It's a very interesting point you make. So I weirdly classify myself as mixed race. Mother's
00:30:43.580
Latin American, grandfather was an Arab. You know, I looked like my father, I got my father's Irish
00:30:49.300
skin. But one of the questions and one of the things that come in from two completely different
00:30:54.200
cultures, and I don't know if you've experienced this, is that you never truly feel neither one
00:30:59.040
nor the other. You always feel somehow on the outside because you are always, you can connect
00:31:05.540
with one culture, but there's always something a little bit different because of the experiences
00:31:09.060
that you've had with another culture. Do you ever find that? No, because I see my culture as British
00:31:16.140
entirely. I'm half white, half black, but 100% British because my mother's British,
00:31:51.220
recipe dishes different food types different uh cultural norms but bring those together what
00:31:57.220
unites them both is Britishness in my in my opinion so I don't have a problem with my identity
00:32:03.200
that is that is the core of my identity after my faith and everything else comes secondary to that
00:32:08.480
and you talk about your faith and you're a Christian yeah and why do you think your faith
00:32:14.280
is so important to you uh so many reasons but i think what faith does is it takes us out of
00:32:22.580
ourselves and i think we've got a very selfish society at the moment um and christian values
00:32:27.600
and british values used to be about service and duty and community and family and putting others
00:32:34.160
before yourself um and i think we've lost a lot of that and all of that stuff would really help
00:32:39.500
us at the moment actually people are always striving for personal happiness whatever makes
00:32:43.700
them happy as an individual. And I'm all for people living individual lives and being individuals,
00:32:47.900
but we do have to at some point consider society if we want it to survive and if we want it to
00:32:54.300
be meaningful. And do you think part of the crisis that we're seeing is actually the fact that we
00:32:58.600
don't have faith anymore? We don't have a belief in God? 100%. So if we look at what's happening,
00:33:03.180
for example, with Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, all of these really extreme hard
00:33:08.940
left groups, people are latching onto them because they don't have a faith anymore. They
00:33:13.220
don't have a religion but that leaves people with a void they need a belief structure and if we look
00:33:17.820
at what these things are doing they are like cults you know extinction rebellion have vestments and
00:33:21.620
all these blood cult things that they do in the streets and black lives matter have their chants
00:33:26.800
and they are filling a void for people that people need something spiritual in their lives and if you
00:33:32.100
don't see it in your faith then you reach out wherever it is being given and at the moment
00:33:36.460
it's these extremist left-wing groups that are saying come join us we'll give you a sense of
00:33:40.020
belonging will give you a sense of purpose and the god that they worship is themselves
00:33:44.660
and that's rather unfortunate well speaking of bringing people together there's there used to
00:33:50.120
be an institution that was designed in this country to some extent to do that to create a
00:33:55.660
common uh culture you know in terms of comedy politics look at the ways responding to i'm
00:34:03.720
talking of course about the bbc uh you're not a fan of the bbc i used to be you know when john
00:34:10.940
benjamin talked about churches and and uh kenneth clark did his civilization and when the bbc used
00:34:17.900
to put out content that no one else could do but now they're not doing that anymore they've become
00:34:22.100
a commercial entity in and of themselves they're not producing anything that any other station
00:34:25.920
couldn't produce um they're i don't know mate some of that woke comedy you have to get taxpayers to
00:34:50.180
I think what we need to do is look at what the BBC does well
00:34:53.040
and enable them to do that without us having to pay a TV tax.
00:34:57.620
So the remit used to work when they first came about.
00:35:00.240
They were one of, well, they were at the earlier station at the time,
00:35:02.440
but then they became one of only two or four stations it made sense for things to work the way
00:35:06.980
they did but now we're paying the BBC for the privilege of watching any other live television
00:35:11.840
whether the BBC's had an input in that or not that doesn't make logical sense to me first and
00:35:16.100
foremost but then the content that the BBC does put out is entirely woke you know everything is
00:35:21.140
about social justice issues everything is about lecturing the British public on how they should
00:35:26.200
think what they should be saying what they shouldn't be saying what's no longer appropriate
00:35:29.340
to think or say or do and i don't i don't think people like that i don't think people like being
00:35:34.200
lectured to by one particular perspective at all times there's no balance there there's no
00:35:39.480
conversation or debate it is just this is our view this is the appropriate approved view that
00:35:45.340
everyone should be subscribing to and if you're not you're a bad person and that's why we're seeing
00:35:49.420
wokeery everywhere because it's perpetuated from bbc from channel 4 from itv all of mainstream
00:35:54.360
media is on it at this point but the difference is that we have to pay for the bbc and look
00:35:58.880
Okay, Calvin, here is a reason why I still want the BBC to exist, okay?
00:36:05.940
We need something in the centre, which brings people from left, from right,
00:36:10.200
conservatives, libertarians, all the rest of it, where they can come,
00:36:15.640
Because otherwise, if we don't have that, then what we end up with is America,
00:36:19.460
with people on their individual little stations talking to each other.
00:36:24.660
We're just going to exacerbate the polarisation in society.
00:36:28.880
and ultimately, arguably, bring the downfall of society
00:36:38.920
Well, it does bring people together from the left and right
00:36:40.940
in that, you know, as part of our Defund the BBC campaign,
00:36:46.940
and people on the left saying, the BBC is so right-wing.
00:36:49.360
And it's not, it's just metropolitan, liberal elite.
00:36:54.540
So they do bring people together in that respect,
00:36:56.180
but they don't bring us together for debate or conversation.
00:36:58.880
How many right-wing comedians do we see on the BBC?
00:37:08.060
that argument is slightly more complicated than that
00:37:27.900
There's loads on YouTube and on Twitter and Instagram.
00:37:33.500
I'm saying if you look at the body of the comedy industry,
00:37:37.320
the vast majority of comedians are not right-wing.
00:37:42.020
then you're going to end up with fewer people making it to the top
00:37:44.320
because statistically there's going to be a small percentage
00:37:47.820
So the reason you don't see a lot of right-wing comedians on the BBC,
00:37:53.300
partly, but only partly, and this is important, it's a nuanced point,
00:38:00.300
Having said that, what I would argue is the BBC
00:38:06.360
and it's biased against other people who are just simply not woke.
00:38:13.180
But I think just in the same way that we should be careful
00:38:15.740
when we talk about representation in terms of race,
00:38:21.240
Just because there's some kind of disparity in outcome
00:38:23.740
doesn't mean there's discrimination going on, necessarily.
00:38:30.060
You know, I'm sort of with Francis, but also with you,
00:38:35.920
in that I don't care about reality, I just care about how I feel.
00:38:39.460
And I just have that hope that it could be the vehicle
00:38:49.620
So is it even going to be around 50 years from now?
00:39:00.440
Just because I'm not saying there should be quotas
00:39:07.800
But what I'm saying is they're addressing diversity
00:39:24.120
as now charging over 75s for their license fee.
00:39:28.380
on superficial diversity that makes no difference
00:39:50.240
So maybe they should have a different business model
00:39:52.740
where they get revenue on a global marketplace or something.
00:40:00.520
I don't know why we're forced under threat of prosecution
00:40:06.160
and we hear it all the time, and I totally get it.
00:40:09.060
I just worry, Calvin, that once you get rid of it,
00:40:16.840
my hope is like all this woke shit settles down 10 years from now and then the bbc kind of goes
00:40:23.900
actually we've got it a bit wrong let's actually make content that everyone can enjoy do you know
00:40:28.900
what i mean like you can sit with your you know slightly racist grandfather and your woke pink
00:40:33.580
haired 18 year old and they can all enjoy a show together yeah do you know what i mean i know what
00:40:39.860
you mean i just don't know if we're heading in that direction no we're not heading in that
00:40:42.240
direction absolutely not there's a new nonsense every day isn't there there's a new woke way
00:40:49.600
But unless I see us heading in the other direction,
00:40:52.480
I don't see anyone taking us in that direction at the moment.
00:40:54.800
I don't think the government's really addressing the woke issue,
00:40:56.860
the cultural wars, if you want to call them that.
00:41:05.520
Are we big enough to take on the BBC and mainstream media?
00:41:11.440
do you think that defunding it is the way to go do you think that is a way to solve this
00:41:17.900
particular problem money is always the way to solve a problem isn't it
00:41:21.240
cut off their purse strings and they'll stop doing whatever it is you know it's like uh these
00:41:27.540
universities in america that said they were institutionally racist and trump said okay
00:41:31.020
well if you're racist we'll stop funding you then and all of a sudden okay what we meant was
00:41:34.960
it's the same with that i think if the bbc wants to be completely woke let them do it but don't
00:41:39.980
make us fund it and then if we change their revenue model I'm sure we'd quite quickly see
00:41:44.700
them change their programming attitudes as well but if you look at most broadcasters you've just
00:41:49.260
given an example yourself I mean Channel 4 which is partly funded you've got ITV which is you know
00:41:53.940
which is funded through advertising you said it's woke Netflix is I mean woke as hell so is um
00:41:59.740
Amazon you know if we defund it is that really going to solve anything yeah but they're competing
00:42:07.520
with each other aren't they and i think we need to diversify that talent pool so i don't think
00:42:12.820
it's that the bbc is institutionally woke i don't think they have a organized system of
00:42:18.100
wokeness they just tend to employ people who think like themselves yeah that's the problem
00:42:22.420
we need to somehow diversify that and we need to hit them where it hurts in order to wake them up
00:42:27.340
to let them know that that's an issue like you say young people aren't watching the bbc they're
00:42:30.640
tuning into netflix or they're on youtube or they're watching tiktok or snapchat these days
00:42:35.200
and so they're chasing an audience that doesn't exist elderly people tend to watch the BBC and
00:42:41.700
now they're turning off because none of the content applies to them it's not appropriate
00:42:44.660
it doesn't represent them I mean the inefficiency of the BBC I go on the BBC frequently I'm sure
00:42:50.240
you do as well I've done work for the BBC you don't no but my experience there is it's full
00:42:57.320
of well-meaning people who just they have a certain mindset and they just think oh we'll
00:43:03.300
get Constantine in because he's a weirdo who has the wrong opinion. And we need one of him
00:43:07.980
for every 200 people who think like us. So every now and again, they'll reject someone with a
00:43:13.580
different opinion. But broadly speaking, they're sort of just like, it's that diversity thing that
00:43:19.100
they love to bang on about. They just, they have a mindset and they want other people who think
00:43:23.600
like them. So it's not some kind of evil cabal like people try and make it out to be, but the
00:43:30.160
incentives aren't there and the financial part of it as well is sort of worrying because you're
00:43:34.400
charging taxpayers and that money then becomes completely differently treated because I've been
00:43:39.360
involved on things on the BBC and you're going I'm not sure anyone listened to this right maybe
00:43:45.060
it's because I was on I don't know but or anyone's watched this or anyone's engaged with this and so
00:43:50.800
I'm sure you get a lot of money being wasted and it's taxpayer money and that's that's a concern
00:43:55.700
isn't it absolutely it's a concern the few times I have been on the BBC like you say I've been the
00:44:00.060
odd one out and you have you have like a panel of five people that are completely woke and you have
00:44:04.020
yourself on the corner and they paint you out as an extremist for having normal views that's a
00:44:08.880
problem but yes absolutely the money is the core issue there in that they're wasting it on you know
00:44:13.540
these big well-paid celebrities and they say we have to compete with the private sector it's like
00:44:19.100
do you really because the bbc is a you know it's a global institution it's got a respectable
00:44:24.040
reputation a lot of people want to go work there anyway you don't have to pay these million
00:44:29.220
pound salaries in order to get talent so they're wasting our money on talent they're wasting our
00:44:34.520
money on diversity quota rubbish you know just waste left right and center so if we say to them
00:44:39.740
you have to find a different way of funding yourself uh going forward we're not going to let
00:44:43.740
the public um pay you through a television tax over threat of prosecution you're gonna have to
00:44:48.700
find a new model let's see how that would change things and what would you say about when people
00:44:53.200
go look the the BBC still makes innovative content you know you look at your Attenboroughs
00:45:00.380
as a classic example nobody you did have to pick a 97 year old guy for this example didn't you
00:45:05.740
yeah I mean he's an old white man he has privilege Calvin I realize that but what I mean it's
00:45:13.720
brilliant isn't it who does documentaries like that um Netflix um anyone can do a documentary
00:45:21.360
like that and Anaya who you've had on here has created a good documentary that's coming out this
00:45:25.160
summer lots of people are doing it I don't think you need to be public publicly funded in order to
00:45:29.640
create something unique you know Channel 4 have a remit to create things that are different to
00:45:34.800
the norm as well not that they do that but you know there are lots of different organizations
00:45:38.160
that can address these issues when you say they're creating good innovative content and then again
00:45:43.160
you point to someone who's been at the BBC for a long time if we think about people that are trying
00:45:46.800
to create that kind of content now such as is it country life or country file I don't watch the
00:45:51.140
bbc sorry country far i think it is came out and said you know the countryside is institutionally
00:45:55.880
racist and it's it's a white area um some as a person who's not white i'm thinking okay so that
00:46:01.740
does that mean the countryside isn't for me is the how is the countryside racist towards me i've
00:46:04.960
spent a lot of time in the countryside i find it to be peaceful and quiet um there aren't a lot of
00:46:09.000
people there granted a lot of the people that are there are white but i don't think it's because
00:46:13.380
i'm not welcome there it's just because you know cities tend to be more metropolitan and more
00:46:18.660
people of ethnic minority status tend to live in cities but this is just another example of
00:46:22.280
anything modern anything contemporary trying to do what the bbc used to do has all gone
00:46:27.060
completely woke and it's a shame i agree with you do you think maybe just maybe and this is
00:46:33.020
a hope of mine rather than a belief but it is a hope this woke moment that we're in it's just
00:46:39.300
one of those periods in time in human history where everyone looks back on it 30 40 years later
00:46:45.260
and just goes, oh, suddenly we had people running around
00:46:52.760
Or suddenly we decided we need to torture people
00:46:55.420
who don't believe quite the right kind of Christianity.
00:46:58.060
It's just a moment when everybody goes mad for a bit
00:47:14.120
I think we've got to stand up and fight, and I mean everybody,
00:47:17.240
because they're the ones looking to tear down our institutions.
00:47:20.040
You know, they're literally ripping down statues left, right and centre.
00:47:23.180
You know, we've got the new diversity commission that's been set up in London
00:47:29.980
They're not going to be putting up any new statues.
00:47:34.320
They're going to be looking at who they can destroy,
00:47:35.980
who they can cancel next because they're not quite working off by today's standards.
00:47:40.240
You know, this idea of looking at historical figures by today's standards
00:47:43.520
is nonsensical because where does that stop in three years four years five years when we look
00:47:47.840
back at people from today are we going to be cancelling them and that's that's like you know
00:47:51.660
the issue with the the school that came up last week where they renamed their houses from Lord
00:47:56.340
Nelson and Sir Walter Raleigh to Marcus Rashford and Greta Thunberg it's like these are people
00:48:01.780
that are still alive still living they could get cancelled tomorrow if they say the wrong thing
00:48:05.540
how are you not forward thinking enough to perceive that you can't keep adjusting your
00:48:09.640
standards in this way it doesn't make any sense I mean obviously Greta Thunberg is a bad choice
00:48:31.920
because I'm interested in your answer more than anything.
00:48:37.260
When I came to this country, I lived in Bristol.
00:48:42.280
why the descendants of slaves who were taken out of Africa,
00:48:45.620
taken to Jamaica, and then maybe some of them came over here,
00:48:48.780
why should they be walking around looking at a statue of a man
00:48:53.500
who profited from their ancestors being murdered, raped, tortured,
00:48:59.040
What possible reason could we have as a country
00:49:02.700
for continuing to honour that person by having their statue
00:49:06.740
and a living human descendant of slaves having to look at that?
00:49:10.580
Has anyone walked around anywhere and seen a statue and said, oh my god, that offends me, ever?
00:49:16.500
I'm not convinced that actually happens. I'm not convinced that people are offended by statues.
00:49:20.400
I think it's just virtue signaling. They want to show how good they are and how bad these people
00:49:24.660
were historically. If we look far back in our history, you know, if we keep going back in our
00:49:29.660
history, we'll find a flaw with every single person. Nobody was perfect. And throughout history,
00:49:34.800
unfortunately, slavery was a thing. It was a terrible, terrible thing, but it was a thing for
00:49:39.040
a long time. So a lot of people from those periods were involved in some way, in some way or another
00:49:44.440
in slavery, right? But that doesn't mean they didn't start charities. That doesn't mean they
00:49:49.060
didn't build hospitals. That doesn't mean they didn't educate kids. And when we put statues up,
00:49:53.720
we put statues up in honour of their accomplishments and their achievements. We don't put them up in
00:49:57.940
honour of the bad things that they did. You know, Winston Churchill is a great hero of mine because
00:50:01.460
he almost single-handedly prevented fascism on a global scale. You know, we wouldn't have entered
00:50:06.620
Sorry, I think the Russians might have a couple of words to say about that.
00:50:09.420
But we wouldn't have entered the war if it wasn't for him, right?
00:50:13.820
And he said and did a lot of horrible things too.
00:50:16.320
But that doesn't negate the fact that he stood up to fascism.
00:50:25.160
There are people who objectively did some things that are so bad
00:50:28.860
that no matter how well they made the trains run,
00:50:35.020
but we only put statues up for people that have you know achievements that we should honor we
00:50:40.480
don't really put statues up for bad people in general do we in the lambatar they have a statue
00:50:44.100
of genghis khan that's that's a good point you got me there but i think what it comes down to
00:50:48.980
for me is that if we look at these things holistically and we don't put them up to
00:50:53.680
venerate them we're not worshiping these people uh they're not saints and even the saints themselves
00:50:58.020
were not perfect people they all had pasts and histories so we need to look at history entirely
00:51:02.880
holistically take on both sides of every argument and then think did this person contribute to our
00:51:07.560
society in a way that's improved it and got us to where we are today if they have great if they
00:51:13.100
haven't there's a conversation to be had about where you go from there but i don't think we
00:51:16.240
should be looking around to say which bad person can we remove next or who who had some remote
00:51:21.960
link to a plantation at some point in their family tree even if it was nothing to do with them it's
00:51:26.520
just bonkers i do agree with you we've gone too far but i still am you know i don't know and i'm
00:51:34.500
the reason i'm asking you these slightly provocative questions is just because i'm
00:51:38.140
trying to work it out in my head i don't know what the justification is because the the guy
00:51:43.300
in bristol colson he he didn't have a remote link to a plantation his business was slavery right
00:51:49.540
so should i i didn't i didn't at all like the way that that was dealt with at the time no
00:51:56.660
accountability no just people come in come along and tear down the statue to me that's wrong that
00:52:01.880
should be done through a proper process but equally i sort of don't i i struggled to make
00:52:08.320
the positive case for having a statue of him erected now yeah so why should it be up now
00:52:42.180
or that the UK should pay reparations to descendants of slavery.
00:52:48.860
because in this system, we don't have government money.
00:52:53.320
Therefore, they're asking taxpayers to pay people who were never slaves
00:53:04.940
my money would be going to pay other brown people.
00:53:07.940
Poor brown people would be paying rich brown people.
00:53:12.180
Your mum would have to pay your dad, which I'm sure she wouldn't be happy about, mate.
00:53:15.340
But that's the thing. My dad would be paying his dad, too, in this system.
00:53:19.340
It doesn't make any sense. I don't think reparations are a logical thing to do.
00:53:23.840
But I think also, you know, like I said, we do have to acknowledge our history holistically,
00:53:27.720
which does mean saying that, you know, slavery was bad and we had a hand to play in that.
00:53:31.480
But it also means that we also pretty much abolished slavery on a global scale.
00:53:35.880
It was the Slavery Abolition Act, and it was our Navy that put slavery to an end.
00:53:40.760
And so we should celebrate our successes as much as we look towards the negatives.
00:53:45.060
So what we've seen so far is we've seen, you know, the woke movement spread.
00:53:51.000
Critical race theory has now infiltrated into schools.
00:53:56.080
Have we gone too far and is there any way of rowing back?
00:54:01.200
And there is a way of rowing back because thankfully, the everyman, the normal person,
00:54:08.820
traditional, what I would call Christian values.
00:54:35.740
you know change your avatars on twitter to your face put your job title if you're a plumber a
00:54:40.100
builder whatever own it be who you are and don't be afraid of them cancelling you because the more
00:54:44.880
people that do that they can't cancel all of us and they need to see that we are real people and
00:54:49.240
these are normal opinions that we hold we're not extremists for thinking there are two genders and
00:54:54.180
that i'm not impressed because of the color of my skin we are just normal british people with
00:54:58.340
normal british opinions and we all need we all need to stick our heads above the parapet until
00:55:02.040
we reach a point that that's no longer a thing and we are you know our opinions become taken for
00:55:06.280
granted again as the normality and the woke mob kind of go back into their caves and and shout
00:55:11.860
at each other and cancel each other out do you think that's going to happen that's what i pray
00:55:16.880
for that's what i work for that's what that's what i think you know that's what this is isn't it yeah
00:55:20.560
it is but do you think that's going to happen i mean you you're sort of interrogating him about
00:55:24.980
it but think about our show and you know we've had to take a lot of flack for starting trigonometry
00:55:29.780
and the bigger it gets, the more flack we take.
00:55:32.100
But think how many comedians watch trigonometry secretly.
00:55:38.060
You know, and so the same with you, with what you're doing.
00:55:40.820
There's a lot of people who just watch from the sidelines
00:55:42.900
and they don't want to necessarily get stuck in.
00:55:46.540
because you're asking people to put their lives on the line.
00:55:50.540
And not everybody, you know, for us, thankfully,
00:55:52.780
because we're creating something that's of value to other people,
00:55:55.500
there's an upside to it and we can actually have a career.
00:55:58.460
you know after some of the interviews we're putting them out in the next couple of weeks
00:56:02.480
uh there's no comedy career left but uh but there is another career but for you know you're talking
00:56:08.100
about a plumber you're asking people to put their livelihood on the line that's tough that's really
00:56:13.720
really tough but on the other hand I also think I completely agree with you man like until enough
00:56:20.060
people start to to put something on the line um it's not going to change and you know we had
00:56:26.080
brett weinstein a while ago talking about this and i was saying to him well what you know you're
00:56:29.980
an evolutionary biologist brett what's the rationale for someone to risk their life for this weird
00:56:35.060
thing and he sort of said well the reason you're risking it is not for for the greater good you're
00:56:39.920
risking it because your future is going to be very badly affected unless this takes a different
00:56:45.740
direction is that the sort of thing that you think about well i think it's both isn't it i think we
00:56:49.340
have to get back to what i talked about earlier service and duty towards each other and we have
00:56:54.320
to that's a reason to stand up not just because of our own futures but to conserve this country and
00:56:59.060
it's it's legacy and everything that we've built here we don't want to see it destroyed by the
00:57:03.600
neo-moxists who want to break it down and rebuild it in their image see the reason i was grilling
00:57:09.020
you calvin is because i think we're fucked i think there's a tinderbox right yeah it's a very
00:57:15.240
stressful time right now and the only parallel i can think of is brexit so people were feeling
00:57:20.760
you know disenfranchised and forgotten and left behind and they spoke at the ballot box which is
00:57:25.380
what we do we're very subtle here we don't revolt in england do we um so we spoke at the ballot box
00:57:30.940
and said enough is enough uh we want to leave the european union and we don't think that westminster
00:57:34.920
is listening to us and we elected a load of brexit party meps for example and i think we could see
00:57:40.660
something similar happen again around the culture wars around all of these issues that we've talked
00:57:45.640
about wokery and and free speech and all of the stuff that we're concerned about but most normal
00:57:50.600
people are too on some level yeah oh of course they are well I was going to ask you there's a
00:57:54.980
funny thing that's happening now and I've been observing it for a while with uh with arguments
00:57:59.580
about the culture war it sort of works a little bit like this like someone on the woke side of
00:58:04.060
things will make a crazy argument like you know there's a thousand and three hundred and forty
00:58:11.200
seven genders and you go well actually I don't think so and they go stop weaponizing the culture
00:58:16.860
war to attack Trump. Like, there's a sort of brainwashing thing where people are now starting
00:58:22.660
to claim that the culture war is something that is happening to them. Why do you think that is?
00:58:28.980
Well, they're reframing the argument, aren't they? It's like, you know, the anti-racists call
00:58:32.520
themselves anti-racists because it's a good cover. And that enables them to push their
00:58:37.880
neo-Marxist agenda forward, enables them to be racist to people like me, because nobody wants
00:58:42.580
to fight against someone who's called an anti-racist because that, by default, makes you racist. And
00:58:46.540
And all that is, it's reframing their argument.
00:58:53.260
you know, in America, they were burning down cities.
00:58:57.080
causing quite a disturbance, a lot of violence.
00:59:02.240
is something that you don't want to argue against that, do you?
00:59:14.800
well at trigonometry we've always been against kicking puppies that's our label therefore
00:59:20.720
anything else you say about us is completely wrong calvin great to have you on the show man
00:59:24.840
thanks for coming on appreciate you playing with us and challenging you a little bit and asking some
00:59:29.940
provocative questions it's been a good conversation we've got one more question for you which is
00:59:33.960
always what's the one thing we're not talking about but we really should be this is going to
00:59:38.220
be a controversial one i don't know if i should really say it but we're not talking about the
00:59:41.320
great reset we're not talking about build back better this hashtag that's taken over the world
00:59:45.420
and I'm not a conspiracy theorist but there is something going on here I don't want to leave
00:59:50.480
this horrible pandemic this horrible lockdown a different country I want the old normal I don't
00:59:57.020
want a new normal you know I don't want to come out of this in a cashless society and I'm very
01:00:02.640
worried about all the things that I'm hearing from our government about hashtag build back better
01:00:07.480
i'd like us to return if we want a better society we can work on it together we don't want it
01:00:11.620
implemented for us or on us that is oppression that is tyranny all right well in for a penny
01:00:17.320
in for a pound since you brought it up i mean i think the monetization went when you said house
01:00:22.760
negro about 73 times in a row but just when you said it then as well yeah uh but since you bring
01:00:28.820
it up look i don't know what the great reset is someone sent me the link to the world economic
01:00:34.020
forum i looked on it it just looks like a bunch of people who are like oh we want to end capitalism
01:00:39.780
or whatever which is fine people are allowed to want to end capitalism i don't agree with it
01:00:43.740
right but when you talk about the great reset what are you talking about look at the way he's
01:00:49.020
got his hand over his mouth this is i'm not a conspiracy theory but 5g and lizard people
01:00:55.840
lizard people yeah there's this idea that you will own nothing and you'll be happy that really
01:01:00.320
disturbs me and it's not even against capitalism it's a new form of capitalism it's this idea that
01:01:05.140
so we're seeing it already for example I went to my bank to pay in a check the other day right
01:01:08.900
and it's so difficult to do that I tried to queue up for the cashier there's only one there
01:01:13.580
they encourage you to go use the machines I'm a computer scientist I'm not a Luddite but
01:01:17.540
I don't like everything being automated because we're losing what we're actually seeing is the
01:01:22.060
erasure of the working class so normal jobs that normal people would do are now being automated
01:01:26.560
but that doesn't stop the wealthy still earning money so what we're seeing is the cost divide is
01:01:33.060
widening people who are already rich and successful and powerful will remain so but the normal ordinary
01:01:37.540
folk who did normal ordinary jobs their jobs won't exist very soon and we're seeing covid being used
01:01:42.340
as a cover to speed up the process we you know for example the 45 pound cash limit on contactless
01:01:47.860
payments being increased to 100 pound to increase um to improve the economy how does that improve
01:01:52.540
the economy but is that not quite a conspiratorial thing to say because you say used as a cover
01:01:58.140
it's perfectly credible in my view to say not used as a cover but it's like if we're paying for if
01:02:03.960
we're trying to reduce the number of physical contacts where people can spread disease
01:02:07.580
doing things contactless sort of makes sense just as a counter argument that would be one of the
01:02:12.380
things right the other thing you talk about the the you know erasure of the working glass i get
01:02:17.360
that completely but it's been already happening it's pretty much if you listen to andrew yang
01:02:24.920
Is that really like people are using COVID nefariously
01:02:35.180
if it costs you X amount to employ so many people
01:02:50.820
But the problem I have with the World Economic Forum and this great reset is that it's all there in the open.
01:02:56.420
And it is, you know, the Davos conference that all the world leaders go to, all the most rich and powerful people in the world go to.
01:03:03.100
And they're not conspiring behind our backs, but they're talking about this very openly, this idea that they want to change society, they want to improve it.
01:03:09.200
But it's in their image. It's not democratic. We're not having a discussion about this. It's being put on us.
01:03:14.240
And that's what scares me. That's what worries me.
01:03:16.260
and even raising the issue makes you look like a tinfoil hat wearing you know swivel-eyed loon
01:03:20.940
which i am but not because of this i'll be honest with you i do think they're using it as a way to
01:03:26.420
get rid of cash and i don't buy the whole oh less contact well you've just got one central disease
01:03:32.360
vector which is a chip and pin yeah but who benefits from us having less cash well the
01:03:38.080
government because they can track you know because they can track us more effectively
01:03:41.100
and number two it's it's a way to control working class people who pay using cash indeed but also
01:03:47.920
what i worry about in the long run is you know systems like what they have in china if you do
01:03:52.520
or say the wrong thing your show your social credit is destroyed we say no nothing like that
01:03:56.480
would ever happen in this country but talk to me a year ago this time a year ago i never would have
01:04:00.300
thought we'd lock down citizens in their homes and tell them who they're allowed to invite into
01:04:03.940
their own house i would have thought that would be a completely foreign idea so you never know
01:04:11.920
That's what petrifies me about this whole thing.
01:04:14.020
And just to say, with our overloads at YouTube,
01:04:26.080
So thank you for watching our final video on YouTube.
01:04:32.020
Where can people follow you and find out what you do?
01:04:34.640
At the moment, I'm on Twitter at Calvin Robinson.